Apparently half of the England team would consider retiring early to play in the IPL.

The greedy blighters. How dare they come down on the side of fiscal wealth against such lofty notions as pride, honour and respect. How dare they forfeit the unique opportunity to be slagged off in the press for a cross-batted heave in favour of something as mundane as cash. How dare they.

Ignoring the fact that they’re probably just trying to prise more money out of the ECB with thinly-veiled threats. Ignoring the fact that merely ‘considering’ early retirement is hardly a definitive statement, let’s commence with the knee-jerk finger-pointing.

Half the England team are proud, loyal representatives of this great nation. Half of them are money-grabbing mercenaries who’d probably strangle a squirrel for 50p. Who is what and why?

We’ll start you off: Kevin Pietersen is a proud, loyal representative of this great nation because he’s got a tattoo of the three lions just below his shoulder and inky feline arm-stains are legally binding.

Tags: England, IPL by King Cricket
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It could have turned out calamitously with a damp squib of a final and the wrong team emerging victorious, but the IPL ended well. Rajasthan rightfully triumphed after dominating the league and they did it off the last ball as well.

The Rajasthan Ribonucleotides were fined for not spending enough money in the IPL auction. It just goes to show that money doesn’t talk.

That said, if you lined up Rajasthan against Leicestershire, for example, Rajasthan - the expensive outfit - would triumph. So money might not talk, but it can still decide cricket matches.

So where are we then? The conclusion has to be that it’s what you spend the money on that counts. Simply paying more for the same thing doesn’t make the thing paid for any better. (English Test match ticket prices, we’re looking at you.)

Tags: IPL by King Cricket
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Shaun Marsh has hit five fifties and a hundred in the IPL. He’s streets ahead of anyone else. He’s hit the most runs and he’s averaging 74.12. He’s adding to Kings XI Punjab’s rich history of great batsmen.

The best thing about Shaun Marsh is the way he’s scored his runs. Twenty20’s a big slogathon is it? Then how come the most successful batsman plays straighter than a Wigan binman?

During his 69 ball 115 against Rajasthan Royals, Marsh scored no fewer than 49 runs straight down the ground, hitting three fours and five sixes in that area. We’re not just talking in front of square, you understand. We mean straight back past the bowler with a satisfying ‘pock’ sound and a ‘go fetch it’ flourish.

Shaun Marsh is Geoff Marsh’s son. We didn’t know that and we’re not sure why we didn’t guess. Here’s a view of him from Down Under. Don’t worry, if you read that link again you’ll see that we’ve capitalised the initial letters of ‘Down’ and ‘Under’, so it’s not a cheeky photograph of his undercarriage it’s some Antipodean opinion.

Tags: IPL, Shaun Marsh by King Cricket
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Rajasthan Recruitment Consultants have won 11 of their 14 league games. Delhi Database Administrators have won seven of their 14 games. Now they play a semi final. Delhi will probably win.

Rumour has it that Rajasthan were spurred into their league-topping run by a huge Shane Warne bollocking after they lost their very first match to these opponents. We always suspected that THE RAGE was the best method of coaching a side.

To get you up to speed, here’s a comprehensive lowdown on these first two semi-finallists:

Rajasthan

Sohail Tanvir is The Balls at this form of the game.

Delhi

Glenn McGrath’s still not going for runs, even though that’s THE WHOLE BLOODY POINT.

There you go, you can get back to your bacon sandwich or your cup of tea or whatever you use to avoid doing work at this time on a Friday.

Tags: IPL by King Cricket
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It’s been a while since anyone was interested, so what the fudge is going on over there?

Well, everyone’s played either 11 or 12 matches out of 14. Rajasthan Royals are top for whom Mr Ego, Shane Warne, is both captain AND coach. Two points behind them are Kings XI Punjab, who are ‘our’ team.

Being a dyed-in-the-wool, through-and-through Kings XI Punjab diehard FANATIC, we’ve ignored about their last ten games, although we do know that they won their last match by a single run, which must have been pretty exciting.

Once all the teams have completed their 14 matches, a whopping four teams out of the eight are discarded and the remaining four contest semi finals and a final, which pretty much flies in the face of the whole ‘league’ concept. Knock out matches? That’s a cup.

Sohail Tanvir’s probably the pick of the bowlers. He’s got one of the lowest averages and he’s only gone for six an over. Of the batsmen, Benevolent Uncle Sanath and Virender Sehwag are the ones who’ve scored a good number of runs at the necessarily ludicrous pace to draw attention.

The end. Check back here in about October if you want news on the knock-out stages, because that’s probably when we’ll get round to covering them

Tags: IPL, Sohail Tanvir by King Cricket
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Yes, it’s just what you think. As it says on the Chennai Super Kings website: “[Super] enhances the qualities of the word it is prefixed to. Super Kings then is not just about royalty, but about absolute monarchy.”

So there you go. Absolute monarchy. That’s what it’s all about. A system of governance where the supreme ruler, the king, is accountable to no-one. He has total power over his lands and people.

But wait. It’s ‘Kings’ plural. There are of course 11 of these particular Super Kings.

So presumably the 11 Super Kings are working as a sort of committee. These Super Kings have absolute power and can do anything they want, provided it’s voted on and there’s a clear majority behind each and every decision.

Tags: IPL by King Cricket
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Tim Nielsen had the following to say about Ricky Ponting’s four matches for Kolkata Knight Riders, during which he scored 20, 19 and two golden ducks:

“I am sure the opportunities to bat outside against net bowlers over there in India will hold him in good stead.”

Tags: Australia, IPL, Ricky Ponting by King Cricket
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Channel M is a local TV channel here in Manchester. Every week they broadcast The Lancashire Cricket Show, which is also available online.

In this week’s episode, Brad Hodge is interviewed about how he’s leaving for a few weeks in order to go and earn seven boatloads of cash in the IPL.

For some reason, he sounds utterly, utterly miserable about this. If you’re at work and can’t watch or you’re borderline suicidal and worried this might tip you over the edge, we’ll summarise for you:

[Low octave mumble, mumble, mumble, rising intonation… Low octave mumble, mumble, mumble, rising intonation… Low octave mumble, mumble, mumble, rising intonation…]

Tags: Brad Hodge, IPL, county cricket by King Cricket
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This is so wrong. How can we be sure we’re really us? Maybe later we can go near some normal people for a minute to check that we still detest all of humanity.

It’s Twenty20’s fault. Bowlers get 24 balls to influence a match and for the majority of those deliveries the batsman tries to slog them into next week. If they slog successfully, everyone cheers. If they miss and get bowled, everyone looks disappointed and says that the bowler was lucky.

Look at some Twenty20 bowling figures where a bowler’s taken three wickets. Do you think ‘well played’ or do you think ‘three bad shots when they were slogging at the end’? To our shame, we default to the latter.

So good on Glenn McGrath for taking 4-29 for Delhi Daredevils against Bangalore Royal Challengers and for doing so through skill. For all the ‘imagine Matthew Hayden and Mahendra Dhoni batting together’ fantasies, it’s been McGrath and Mohammad Asif, Delhi’s new ball attack, that’s been the most exciting pairing - mere bowlers.

It’s not that they’re the most spectacular bowlers, because they clearly aren’t. It’s that they’re of the highest quality and with flat pitches and odds loaded towards the batsmen, everyone’s wondering if there’s anything a bowler can do or whether they’re merely cannon fodder.

Miserly old Glenn McGrath must hate being seen as a source of runs. He’s probably only bothering to take wickets because he knows that it means dot balls.

Tags: Glenn McGrath, IPL by King Cricket
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Harbhajan Singh slapped Sreesanth. Sreesanth had a bit of a cry.

This happened because Harbhajan Singh’s a little bit of a dick and because Sreesanth’s also a little bit of a dick. Harbhajan Singh would slap anyone and anyone would slap Sreesanth. It’s a huge surprise that it hasn’t happened before.

That’s how we’re reporting it.

Tags: Harbhajan Singh, IPL, Sreesanth by King Cricket
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